Earthship Wisconsin!

Hi!!! Earthship Wisconsin is about to set sail! We have some of the best times hanging out together. It is a dream we are building together. A promise we have made to each other, to our family, to ourselves. Could we have just bought a simple house and lived in that? Of course we could have. We certainly could have...but that house we could get, would it supply us with electricity? Or clean water? Could we live in the Wisconsin winter with no heat? Could we escape the humid summer heat without an air conditioner? Could we grow peppers, tomatoes, beans, strawberries and even pineapple during our Wisconsin winters? In a word, No. Not without our Earthship. Here is the cool thing. The Earthship provides all of that...and more!
Wait...how on earth is that possible (pun intended)? I'll tell you how. I am no expert, by anyone's standards... but am  in the process of building my own Earthship.

Asuka Lynn, from the "Asuka Lynn Show" on Youtube.com shows off a piece of clay she found while  working our first day on the Earthship.

Used automobile tires are used as the basic foundation and load bearing walls. Each tire is used according to size and placed on level ground. Each tire is then 'pounded' or filled with dirt and hit with a sledgehammer.  It is actually a very simple process, needing only the basic of tools....and some tires. You need a sledgehammer, a shovel, a tape measure, some string and marking tools and a level.

For this particular post I will not go into all of the details but keep it to the bare bones essentials. For all of the really technical stuff I will neglect to remember make SURE to visit earthshipbiotecture.com. You will find all of your answers there! I am just letting you guys out there know what I am doing, and will keep you updated on the progress of our build. We are allowing interns this year, 2013, as we are a little more aware of what we are doing. Last year we spent a large majority of our build scratching our heads and talking about what we should do...or could do.

Ok, back on topic. You find your perfect build spot and start building...(AGAIN completely oversimplified) but we are just covering the basics here. The ground will be leveled and your basic walls will be marked out with stakes and string to make sure you are following the right course. Imagine laying a brick wall. If you lay out your bricks haphazardly and expect it to..oh...you know....stay up....Not happening.

You level your ground, place your tires and start filling it with dirt. You put a LOT of dirt in and get it pushed into the side walls of the tires. Once you have a lot of dirt in them you start pounding the dirt into the tire. It can take 45 minutes or longer to just fill one tire...especially when you are a little unsure of what you are doing yet.

If you imagine your tire as a clock...pound the dirt into the tire at the 12:00 position. Hit it a few times and move on to 1:00-repeat and move to 2,3,4...all the way until you came back to where you started. You will need more dirt before you ever get around back to where you started.

It becomes a rammed earth brick. A steel belted, rubber encased brick. By googling rammed earth, you will be able to see that rammed earth buildings have been in existence for a very long time, using the automobile tires simply makes a better and easier brick mold. With a brick that is nearly 3 feet in diameter, the thermal mass these rammed earth bricks hold is phenomenal.

Add more dirt and pound some more, add dirt, pound some more...and keep doing this until the tire is nice and full. A word of advice, when you have a young, tough twenty-something pounding the first tire...THE tire that all of the rest of the tires will be leveled off of, DO NOT let him pound the sidewall to high. Just a nice little bit of bulging of the sidewall is required....Or you WILL do a lot of re-work as you get half way done and realize that pounding a tire to a 25 year old buff guy's specifications. Trust me...just trust me on that one!

Not the 25 year old guy we just talked about, but another intern here at Earthship Wisconsin working to level off a tire on the second row of the U room.

Each room consists of a "U" shape as seen in a photo coming up. The U's are joined together and face to the South. In the winter time from the time the sun rises until the time the sun sets you get the solar heat from the sun coming in through a large 'hallway' that runs in front of all the rooms. You are toasty all winter long without even having to crank your thermostat up...You might even get too hot! In the winter...with NO heat! Now isn't that something!!!

In the summer time, the summer sun rises higher in the sky and the shining rays go right over the top of the Earthship, and while you get tons of light from your large front windows, the sun is so high in the sky it doesn't shine directly into the windows, and you stay cool. You are using the same principals of thermal mass. In the cool nights the tires remain cool and similiar to a battery, it "sends out" cooler air, keeping to nice and cool!

It is actually a very simple idea, and works awesome. In addition you are using automobile tires that would otherwise be thrown into a landfill or burnt up. 

Two little munchkins sit on finished tires. While it is starting to take shape, there is a lot of work to go! Looking forward to an awesome summer meeting incredible people again!

When you have your walls up, that hallway I mentioned before with all the south facing glass...guess what? That becomes an extraordinary greenhouse of Epic proportions! The roof that you put on is especially designed for catching water and funneling that water through a series of water filtration devices to be stored in cisterns for use. Ever wished you had a waterfall right in your house? Make one! No ground water ever needs to be harvested again.

Oh...and speaking of plants...guess what you use to water your plants? Rainwater? Even better! You design your drain system and all of your water from the sinks and the shower will be drained and filtered through rocks, sand, soil, plant roots etc...and comes out the other side clean as a whistle! No joke, it's been tested safe to drink...but you simply take that water that the plants helped you filter and you run that right through the commode! How cool is that? You wash dishes, the water goes through your planters, waters your plants and get filtered right into the commode as the clean water you are used to seeing in there(as you flush- figured I should specify a bit).
Well, what happens to that water? It is simply funneled through an outside filtration system where the nutrients (eww!) get filtered into a 'filtration cell' which is a holding tank and the clean water filtered out feeds and waters the outside trees, hedges, etc. No pollution.

A little off the topic somewhat, but you know what gets me? There are so many regulations regarding waste from a toilet. Many communities want you to have your system checked regularly, show proof of that, have your tank pumped every so often and on and on....but guess what? You know those huge septic truck that spray brown liquid on the fields in rural areas? That POOP! That is from your tanks. Why regulate sewers to the point where a person carefully and safely taking care of their own waste would be frowned upon...and then all the POOP is just collected and thrown out into a field to sit there.
Those who would carefully create their own safe systems wouldn't use harmful chemicals, their trees would die! But again I digress. I do that.

It can take up to 45 minutes to pound a tire, when you don't really know what you are doing...or you are out of shape. There are times though that you go out there and just play in the dirt. There is something calming (yes, and dirty) about just feeling the soil between your toes and fingers. It is actually just healing! It's awesome!

I will keep all updated on how we are going as we get started here this year. Have a great one all!

Two interns from 2012 have an awesome dirt fight. While we at Earthship Wisconsin don't normally condone flinging shovels towards one another...we aren't beneath trying to get a shot before, during or after someone falls down with a shovel imprint on their forehead. For the record, every survived the dirt fight unscathed.